‘Sometimes when I look back I’ve no idea how I stayed sane never mind together,’ I joke in return. ‘I talked it out a lot with social workers through my teens and took any support they could offer as I ducked and dived through the system, but talk about jumping from one disaster to another. I believed every word my husband told me, and I suffered for it deeply once I found a way out of the fog. I’ll never make that mistake again.’
I close my eyes to fight back tears, then try and distract myself by looking in my handbag for some gum. I offer some to Aidan and he accepts, catching my eye for just a second before he has to watch the road again, but in that moment I know he sees me now in a very different light.
‘You’re pretty amazing, really,’ he says, and I gulp back tears as a tsunami of the past threatens to suffocate me once more. ‘You’ve been to hell and back emotionally, yet you still find strength and have faith in seeing the good in others.You’re a good person, Roisin. I see more and more of why Mabel thought so much of you every time I spend time with you.’
I can only nod and pretend I’m staring out of the window to disguise the tears that fall down my face.
‘Thanks, Aidan,’ I manage to whisper. ‘That’s really nice to hear.’
‘Do you ever see your mum now?’ Aidan asks me tenderly now as we sip coffee overlooking Breena harbour, both of us so glad to have reached our destination and to be able to see what made his dad and uncle fall in love with the place so much all those years ago. ‘Do you keep in touch with her still?’
I take a moment with my reply and look out at the Irish Sea, which is tranquil and peaceful today, much calmer than the rugged, wild waves of the Atlantic I’ve grown used to in County Donegal.
‘She’s living her own life in Dublin in a way that only she can understand,’ I say, stirring my coffee and trying my best to remain dignified. ‘I’ve tried, Aidan. I’ve tried until my heart bled sore, but there are only so many times one person can let you down before you have to walk away for your own sanity. It’s for the best and I honestly believe that. I’ve made peace with her now in my own way and I need to protect myself and Ben from any further hurt. Her rejection was like a knife in my heart every single time sheturned her back on me, and I’ll always have the scars to prove it.’
He looks at me so helplessly and I try to shrug it off. Talking about my mother will never be easy, but for some reason I seem to be able to empty out my feelings with Aidan, and he is the same with me.
He tells me more about his relationship with Rachel and the way their marriage has fallen apart after only three years.
‘There are times when I’ve felt like such a failure by hiding away here since Mabel died,’ he says, when we’re on the subject. ‘I really,reallywanted my marriage to work, but it takes two, you know, and like Mabel said, there’s only so long you can run without having to meet the truth face on.’
‘Tell me about it,’ I say, fidgeting with the buttons on my dress. ‘I know exactly what you mean.’
‘I’ve told them all in New York how I’ve been feeling,’ he explains. ‘I’ve told Rachel and her dad that I simply need this break away from them all to sort my head out and to find the strength to see this through. And I’ve told them that there’s only so long I can live under their … I’ve told them there’s only so long I can be under someone else’s control to live my life in a way that’s so uncomfortable and wrong. I was suffocating, Roisin, and so was Rachel, but being here has helped me breathe again, just like I hoped it would.’
My eyes widen as I dig a little deeper in my mind as towhat he might be hinting at when he speaks about control and feeling suffocated under a regime instilled by others. It sends shivers down my spine as I connect with exactly what he means and I feel a wave of protection for him burn inside me, as if I want to confront whoever it is that’s making him feel so vulnerable and used.
‘Did you – did you feel trapped in your marriage?’ I ask him gently. ‘Have you been staying with Rachel against your own will?’
My stomach twists at the familiarity of it all and my eyes sting as old painful memories churn inside me, curdling like sour milk so I almost gag. It reminds me of how I used to assure myself that Jude’s actions towards me were only because he cared, and at least he didn’t push me around. Then, when he did push me, at least he didn’t hit me. Then when he did hit me, at least he didn’t leave a mark. And so the cycle went on and on.
‘That’s one way of putting it,’ he says, laughing with a hint of disbelief. ‘I was most definitely staying against my own will. But anyhow, I plan to go back to New York by summer and sort out my affairs, both privately and professionally, before I start all over again, God knows where. I can’t emphasize how being away from it all has really given me the space I needed to see everything so much more clearly. It’s made it hit home just how much I’ve been living a lie.’
He exhales long and slowly, as if he is releasing so much tension through his confession. Of course I’d alreadyguessed that his marriage to Rachel was struggling, as he’s spent so long here in Ballybray avoiding the very subject at almost all costs, but to hear of his reasons has stunned me a little.
‘Good for you to recognize that and do what’s right for you,’ I tell him, knowing exactly what he’s been through in his own heart and mind. A seagull lands at my feet and waddles along picking up invisible scraps from the ground before flying away to pastures new. ‘And how does Rachel feel about it all? Does she know why you’re doing this?’
I can only imagine how frightened, yet heartbroken at the same time, Aidan must feel having told her.
He laughs nervously.
‘For me, it’s like a tonne of bricks has been lifted off my shoulders after carrying around the weight for far too long,’ he says, clasping his hands together and stretching out in front of him to release some of his pent-up tension. ‘And I know she is glad it’s over too, as the whole set-up was becoming toxic for us both. I should have moved away about twelve months ago to give us both some space, but I was too tied up in work and too tangled up in my own head to think straight.’
‘I understand.’
‘Mabel’s death gave me a reason to come home, and as much as I thought I’d want to race right back there after the funeral, within a few days it was the opposite,’ he admits. ‘Coming here made me wake up to the fact that Rachel andI were never in love like a couple should be. It’s helped me make the changes I should have made a long time ago.’
We both take a moment to reflect on our own pasts, each on the same wavelength at how devastating a marriage break-up can be on so many levels, and I contemplate and recall just how difficult making that move – whatever the reasons – can be.
My interpretation of what was for the best in my marriage was really what was for the worst, and acknowledging as much is a bitter pill to swallow. I should have left Jude long before he died, but I didn’t. It pains me so much to admit that.
‘And what do you think a couple who are really in love should be like?’ I ask him, my mind still a little bit stuck in the past. ‘Is there a magic recipe, because if there is I’d love to know it?’
I laugh as I say this, knowing that no one really has the answer, except perhaps their own version of what true love is.
‘Ah, that’s the million-dollar question, Roisin,’ Aidan replies, laughing a little now too.
‘It really is, isn’t it?’
